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MEMOIR 



OF 



Chaeles Wentwoeth Upham, 



BY 



GEORGE E^'ELLIS. 



Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, December, 1876. 



oXKc 



CAMBRIDGE: 

PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 

1877. 



"RW 



MEMOIR 



CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM. 



Chaeles Wentworth Upham, though he was not born 
within the limits of the United States, had every other claim 
to its full and honored citizenship. Here he passed all but 
the early boyhood of his life ; and here, in several forms of 
high service, he discharged a larger variety of trusts than is 
often assigned to the most favored of those born on our soil. 
He came of a family among the original English Colonists 
of Massachusetts Bay. A line of five generations between 
his first ancestor here and himself gives us the names of those 
who were trusted and serviceable in all the ordinary and 
emergent offices, calling for able and faithful men, in the 
development of communities and States. 

The first of the family in Massachusetts was John Upham. 
His gravestone, in the old burial-ground of the town of Mai- 
den, implies that he was born in England, in 1597, near the 
close of tlie reign of Queen Elizabeth, He emigrated hither 
at the age of thirty-eight, with wife and children, and settled 
at Weymouth. He was admitted a freeman — signifying his 
being in church covenant — Sept. 2, 1635 ; and was repeatedly 
deputy or representative from that town in the General 
Court. Before the year 1650, he had removed to Maiden ; 
serving the town and the court as selectman and commis- 
sioner, and in the municipal trusts then committed to the 
worthiest citizens. He died in 1681, aged eighty-four ; having 
been for twenty-four years a deacon of the church. 

A son of John Upham, who would seem to have been the 
first of his children born in the colony for the defence of 
which he was to give his life in Indian warfare, was Lieu- 
tenant Phineas Upham. He died in iNIalden, October, 1676, 
at the age of forty-one, from wounds received in the Great 
Swamp Eight with the Narragansetts, in Philip's war, Nov. 
19, 1675. Just previous to the breaking out of the war, 
which disabled him for nearly a year afterwards and brought 



his life to a close, he had been engaged in the first enter- 
prises for the settlement of Worcester. 

The eldest son of the lieutenant bore his name ; and died 
in Maiden, in 1720, at the age of sixty-two, after having 
served as selectman, representative, and deacon of the church. 

A third who bore the name of Phineas, and the eldest son 
of him just named, was the progenitor of a numerous family 
connection ; which, including the subject of this Memoir, 
offers us a long list of men widely known over our extending 
country, eminent and honored in all j)rofessions and pursuits, 
— in trade, in law, in medicine, in scholarship, and philoso- 
phy, in the churches and colleges, and in the senates of the 
States and the nation, — and of women, also, as wives, moth- 
ers, and matrons in the best of our households. 

One of the sons of tlie third Phineas Upham was Dr. Jabez 
Upham, who went to Brookfield, Mass., ai^d there practised 
his profession as a physician till his death, in 1760. His son, 
Josluia Upham, was the father of the subject of this Memoir ; 
and because of a special interest attached to his life and ex- 
perience, connected with the early fortimes of liis son, the 
writer of these pages must anticipate a matter in the line of 
his narrative. 

Tiie last, and it may fairly be said the most genial and the 
most felicitously wrought, labor of the })en of our late associate 
was his Memoir of Colonel Timothy Pickering, soldier and 
statesman, Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General of 
the armj'of the Revolution, and Postmaster-General, Secretary 
of War, and Secretar}'- of State, of the United States. In his 
later years he was a much honored and esteemed parishioner 
and intimate friend of Mr. Upham, then minister of the First 
Church in Salem. There was still another tie between the 
venerated Pickering and his biogra[)her, which the latter felt 
to be a warm and strong one, as the patriot statesman had 
been in Harvard College the classmate and chum, and con- 
tinued to be the friend, of Mr. Upham's father, though their 
Avays in troubled times divided tlieir interests and fortunes. 
The reader of the admirable l)iograi)hy of Colonel Pickering 
will notice that, among the incidental episodical discussions in 
■which Mr. Upham allows some liberty to his own pen, always 
adding charm and vigor to his pages, is one on tlie treatment 
of the Loyalists, or so-called Tories, on the first outburst of 
the spirit of liberty in Massachusetts and the other Provinces. 
It might seem as if the biographer's prom[)ting in this plea 
was a somewhat personal one, as he was himself the son of 
an exiled and proscribed Loyalist. But his plea and argu- 



ment may be allowed to stand on their own merits of perti- 
nency and cogency. His views and liis judgment in the 
matter wliolly coincided with those of Colonel Pickering. And 
it can hardly fail to strike the reader that the course which 
Mr. Upham thinks would have been a wiser one in the treat- 
ment of our Loyalists Avas precisely that pursued by our own 
government on the close of the War of Secession, in restoring 
to all their former political and social rights even the fore- 
most leaders of the Rebellion. 

Joshua Upham was born in Brookfield, Mass., in 1741. He 
graduated at Harvard College in 1763. In view of the agi- 
tations and alienations which were to be so painfully active 
among the members of that class when, after their pleasant 
fellowship in the College, they in a few years should find 
themselves at variance in the entrance of their manly careers, 
it is interesting to note the many names on the list which are 
associated with a remarkal)le personal history on both sides 
in the Revolutionary strife. There stand the names of the 
honored patriot, Josiah Quincy, Jr., prematurel}^ called from 
the good service which he was so nobly rendering ; of Nathan 
Cushing, Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ; and 
of Timothy Pickering, just mentioned. Tliese are conspicuous 
names on the winning side. There, too, is the name of a 
neutral or a mediator, — that of John Jeffries, who returned 
from his medical studies in Aberdeen, just as our strife was 
o|)ening, in the British naval service ; went off with General 
Howe, as surgeon to the forces in Nova Scotia, and also in 
Charleston, S. C. ; returned to England, crossed the British 
Channel to France, in a balloon; and came back, in 1789, to 
practise his profession in Boston. The names on the college 
catalogne were then arranged in the order of social rank. 
After the name of Upham come those of Jonathan Bliss — 
afterwards Upham's brother-in-law — and of Sampson Salter 
Blowers, these three being all refugees in the war. Upham 
and Bliss became Judges of the Supreme Court of the Prov- 
ince of New Brunswick, Bliss being the Chief Justice ; and 
Blowers, Chief Justice of that of Nova Scotia. The last-named 
lived beyond one hundred years before he was starred in the 
catalogue. Similar divergences may be traced in the fortunes 
of members of the classes preceding and following that of 
1763. They contained many prominent men, whose careers 
on either side Avere fond subjects of interest and study to the 
subject of this Memoir, as they illustrated history and character. 

Joshua Upham began the stutly of law in Brookfield, and 
had won much distinction at the Worcester bar ; being greatly 



honored in his profession, and p^reatly respected for public 
spirit as a citizen np to the painful crisis in his lot. It is re- 
markable that, while those who were driven to the royal side, 
as he was, generally accorded with tlie liritish polic}" in the 
snppression of manufacturing enterprises in the Colonies, he 
was very active in promoting such provincial industries. In 
March, 1768, a meeting was held in Worcester of those who, 
indignant Avitli the j:)rohil)itory measures of England, were in 
favor of advancing manufactures. The famous Ruggles op- 
posed the disloyal movement ; but Upham ai)i)roved it. He, 
with two brothers and other gentlemen, had built a woollen 
manufactory in Brookfield,* and he had made efforts to intro- 
duce the manufacture of salt at stations on the sea-coast. 
But he fell upon distracted times ; and there can now be no 
harm in saying that, like many others in the country of a 
class of so-called Loyalists, who were at worst only timid, 
halting, or cautious, while sincerely upright, conscientious, 
and patriotic, he received unmerited harsh treatment. Com- 
mittees of correspondence, of espionage and inquisition, be- 
came very active, sometimes overbearing and impertinent, in 
every town. The business which they assigned to themselves 
was to put to the question of King or People every citizen, 
especially the more prominent ones in place or influence. 
Hurry and dictation were offensive to some, who needed only 
time and fieedom of action to bring them into accord with 
the popular movements. On receiving a somewhat imperious 
call from the committee of his town, for a statement of his 
opinions and purpose in the critical state of affairs, he replied 
by a letter, which is printed in Force's " American Archives," 
fourth series, vol. ii., page 852, dated May 20th, 1775. In 
this letter, he says he is pausing to decide on the position 
which he shall himself take, until, after free debate and a 
pioper deliberation, the majority of the people have committed 
themselves to the one or the other alternative. He will not 
set up his jn-ivate judgment against that of the people, but 
chtims a right to express his own views and apprehensions to 
help in the decision of the question. Then he will acquiesce 
in the popular resolve, and take common part and lot in 
measures designed to save tlie couutrj' in resisting the royal 
govermnent, though he may think such measures improper, 
and not likely to be successful. In the mean while, he de- 
manded freedom of opinion, and security for person and prop- 
erty. But the intense feelings of the hour, and the humor of 

* See Boston Evening Post, Oct. 10, 1768. 



his fellow-citizens, would not admit of what seemed weak and 
cautious temporizing, and a timid mistrust of a hopeful cause. 
The coolness of treatment which he received, with threats or 
apprehensions of what might follow, drove him, as they did 
many others under like circumstances, to the protection of 
the royal sympathizers in Boston. This act decided his future 
for him. Without means of support for himself and family 
in a besieged town, he accepted from the British commander 
the office of supervision of the refugees from the country, and, 
soon after, an appointment as aid on the staff of Sir Guy 
Carleton, subsequently Lord Dorchester, between whom and 
himself there continued a warm friendship. The close of the 
war found him at New York in the British service as a colonel 
of dragoons. He was among the proscribed whose estates 
were confiscated by the State of Massachusetts in 1778 ; and 
nothing but exile was before him. Mr. Upham had married, 
first, a daughter of Colonel John Murray, of Rutland, Mass. ; 
and, on her decease, a daughter of Honorable Joshua Chand- 
ler, of New Haven, Conn. The latter was the mother of the 
subject of this Memoir and of several other children. The 
stately mansion-house of her father was afterwards long known 
as the " Tontine " Hotel, in New Haven. A building of the 
same name succeeds it on the same site. Mr. Uphain's fine 
homestead in Brookfield long served a similar use. 

Colonel Pickering, Avho, as above stated, was one of those 
who disapproved of the summary measures pursued towards 
the so-called Loyalists, felt a sincere sympathy for his old 
college chum, Upham. In a letter which he wrote to a friend 
in March, 1783j he says that Upham had expressed to a 
correspondent in Boston, where he had left a daughter, an 
intention of returning there ; and he adds, " Upham is a good- 
hearted fellow, and probabl}^ would not have joined the 
enemy but for his marriage connections." After the close of 
hostilities, and during the long delay in the evacuation of 
New York, Pickering, who had hoped to have a friendly in- 
terview with Upham, which the hurried departure of the 
latter prevented, wrote to him from West Point, Nov. 14, 
1783, a most cordial letter of unbroken regard and sym- 
pathy. To this Upham, on the 18th, replied in the same 
spirit of kindness and esteem, saying, " I leave the country 
for the winter from pecuniary considerations, not from re- 
sentment." * 

New Brunswick, which had been a county of Nova Scotia, 

* Life of Timothy Pickering, Vol. I. pp. 405, 491, 492. 



called Sunbury, was separated and made a distinct govern- 
ment and province in 1784. At the first organization of the 
Supreme Court of the Province, Joshua U[)ham was made an 
assistant justice, Nov. 25, 1784. He was also, with other 
refugees, on the council of Thomas Carleton, Esq., Avho was 
commissioned as first governor of the Province. The judge 
faithfully and ahly dischaiged the arduous duties attendant 
upon tlie tasks assigned him, under the conditions of a rough 
country and a settlement among a raw and heterogeneous 
population. His brethren on the bench sent him to England 
in 1807, on a mission to the government, for securing a more 
complete organization of the judiciary of the Province. He 
met with perfect success in the purpose of his errand. He 
also made many strongly attached personal friends, among 
whom Avere JVIr. Palmer, who bequeathed his valuable library 
to Harvard College, Sir John Wentwoith, Sir William Pep- 
perrell, and Mr. Spencer Perceval. The last-named gentle- 
man. Chancellor of the Exchequer, formed so strong a regard 
for Mr. Upham — who died in l^ondon in 1808, and was buried 
in the Church of Marylei)one — as to continue acts of sub- 
stantial kindness to the widow and children, whom the judge 
had left Avith very slendet means. The Chancellor, a few 
da3's before his assassination, sent a considerable sum of 
money, — four hundred silver dollars, — with books and other 
valuable gifts, for the education of the sul)ject of this Memoir. 

Charles Wentworth Upham was born in St. John, New 
Brunswick, May 4, 1802. This was at the time a Avild, un- 
settled region of forest, on the edge of the farthest boundary 
of the Province, — a region now partly the parish of Upham 
and partly Sussex Yale, bordering on the St. John's River, on 
the Bay of Fundy. Till 1785, the region was a part of Nova 
Scotia. Many of the Hessian soldiers settled after the Revo- 
lution in that neighborhood. 

Judge Upham's house was on the banks of the river Ken- 
nebekasis. The scenes around it, and the conditions of 
domestic and social life which it involved, were for several 
years rough and severe. Still, they had their compensations 
in the occasions for activity, enterprise, and sterling virtues 
which they presented, and were especially favorable to the 
development of good qualities in the children born and trained 
there by worth}^ parents. Had the Chancellor Perceval lived 
longer, it is probable that Charles might have been sent to 
England, under his patronage, and continued through life a 
British subject. He gave early* indications of the mental 
powers and proclivities which distinguished his maturity, and 



from his boyhood improved every opportunity which his own 
efforts and the aid of otliers coidd secure for his education 
and culture. After the death of his father, and when lie was 
but eight years of age, he was sent to a school then recently 
established at St. John, where instruction in Latin was of- 
fered. Still another occasion presented itself, which might 
have resulted in making him a British subject and naval 
officer for life. He was a bright and handsome youth, re- 
markable then, as always, for personal beauty and attractive- 
ness. These qualities drew to him the interest of Captain 
Blythe, of the British brig " Boxer," then stationed at St. 
John, during the war between Great Britain and her former 
colonies. The captain Avas about securing to the boy a 
midshipman's warrant aboard his vessel ; the mother having, 
though with reluctance, given her consent to the proposal. 
Just as the scheme was maturing, word came in that the 
United States brig " Enterprise," Lieutenant Burrows, was 
off the coast. Captain Blythe slipped his cables, and hurried 
out to engage her. The vessels came to action oif Port- 
land Harbor, Sept. 4, 1813. After a gallant and sanguinary 
combat, the "Boxer" was captured; but both the com- 
manders were killed, and peacefully interred side by side. 
When (as will be noted farther on), in the temporary raging of 
the excitement in the political field of the " Know-Nothing " 
or Native American party, Mr. Upham was superseded as a 
representative of his district in the National Congress, this 
friendly purpose toward him of Captain Blythe was made the 
starting-point of a story that he had once served in the British 
navy. Charles was then put into an apothecar3''s shop, charged 
with the preparation of medicines and prescriptions, and with 
attending on the proprietor, Dr. Paddock, of St. John, a 
physician and surgeon in large private and hospital practice. 
Here the youth, with his characteristic industry and love of 
learning, read through the whole Edinburgh " Materia Med- 
ica." But the death of his employer again arrested the cur- 
rent of his life in the direction of a professional education. 
He was sent to a farm fifteen miles above Annapolis, in 
the valley of the river of the same name, where he performed 
such rough and useful service as his j-ears allowed. In 1813, 
just before the close of the war, Mr. Phineas Upham, a mer- 
chant of Boston, and cousin of Charles, happening, on a visit 
to St. John, to see his young kinsman, proposed to befriend 
him b}^ training him for business in his store. From the in- 
ducements offered by this ojiportunity, maturely reflected 
upon, the subsequent career of the youth was decided. He 

2 



10 

started, unaccompanied, on June 14, 1816, being then fourteen 
years old, to return to the country of his ancestry. He was 
then at an age to have formed abiding impressions of the 
scenes and companions of liis youth. One of his life-long 
interests was to retain and extend his knowledge of the history, 
the fortunes, and the inhabitants of the Provinces Avhich 
Great Britain leserved in America. He had occasion to know 
how feelings of embitterment in many of their inhabitants for 
two generations had grown from an undue or ill-timed severity 
towards the native or resident Loyalists at the opening of our 
Revolution. He believed, with reason, that more tolerant or 
conciliatory treatment of them would in many cases have 
drawn them over to the popular and successful side, and 
would have averted the rise and growth of prosperous settle- 
ments on our northern and eastern borders, whose interests 
have sometimes clashed with our own, and Avho have more 
than once in our history threatened a dangerous hostility 
against us. He continued, by correspondence, a close con- 
nection with the members of his family whom he had left 
behind him ; and in later years the survivors of them were 
frequently his visitors. As will be mentioned by and by, on 
graduating from Harvard College, in 1821, in company with 
a friend and classmate, he made a tour in the Provinces, and 
visited his mother, then residing in Annapolis. He made a 
second visit to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in 1844, ac- 
companied by his friend, Mr. Humphrey Devereux, of Salem. 

Tiiere must have been something venturesome and exciting 
for the boy, as his own protector and guide, in a time of hos- 
tilities, travelling over disturbed scenes by sea and land to 
reach a new home. He crossed the Bay of Fundy, and then 
made his way to Eastport, Me., held at the time by the 
British ; and, following the coast, he reached Boston on June 
27. His kind kinsman received him into his family and 
counting-house, intending to train him for busiuess. But his 
evident talents and tastes for a higher mental culture were 
indulged ; and, with a view to his preparation for a college 
course, he was sent to a school in Boston, under the charge 
of the late Deacon Samuel Greele, among whose pupils he 
was the eldest, Avhile Robert C. Winthrop was the youngest. 

He entered Harvard College in 1817, and, pursuing the 
usual course, graduated in 1821. His class contained many 
members who, like himself, attained distinction in mature 
life, and filled many places of trust and influence. How he 
stood among his associates will soon apjjcar from communica- 
tions from two of them, with which the Avriter of tiiis ^Memoir 
has been kindly favored. His first and constant object was 



11 

to secure the highest improvement of tlie opportunities which 
he enjoyed ; and the second, consistent with the first and 
helpful to it, was to win the respect and love of his teachers 
and associates. Though his kinsman cheerfully assumed the 
expense of his education and maintenance, young Upham felt 
prompted, alike by his circumstances and his inclination, to 
avail himself of the usual resource of many students in those 
days, — that of teaching school in country towns through a 
prolonged winter vacation, while following on with the studies 
of his class. The winter of his Sophomore year was thus 
spent at Wilmington, Mass. ; where, nearly a half century 
before, he had been preceded in the office by Benjamin 
Thompson, afterwards the famous Count Rumford. The 
winter of his Junior year was spent in similar service in the 
town of Leominster, and that of his Senior year in Bolton. 

Of his course and standing in College, the following letters 
from two of his classmates fuiiiish hearty and appreciative 
estimates ; and what the writer has heard in conversation 
from other members of the class is of the same genial and 
admiring tone. The writers of both these letters were present 
at the last rites of respect and affection for Mr. Upham. The 
first of them is from Honorable Josiah Quincy, a former 
Mayor of Boston : — 

Quincy, Nov. 20, 1875. 

My dear Doctor Ellis, — I do not know that I can give any 
particular reminiscences of ray friend and classmate, Charles Went- 
worth Upham. His chum for part, if not the whole, of his college 
course, was the late Benjamin Tyler Reed, the founder of the Episco- 
pal Seminary at Cambridge. Upham was very handsome and very 
popular, and was the second scholar in the class. Robert W. Barn- 
well, of South Carolina, was the first, and was a nearer friend to Mr. 
Upham than to any other of the young men of tiie North, — there being 
a line of distinction between those who came from the South and those 
from the North. The former were very polite, but, except among them- 
selves, very reserved and distant. Barnwell was a leader in our rebel- 
lion at College on account of the suspension of Manigault, who was his 
room-mate and friend. He was afterwards almost the author of the 
great Rebellion against the Union ; being a Senator of the United 

States from South Carolina, the author of the letter to the 

President, which even Mr. Buchanan refused to receive, and subse- 
quently a member of the Confederate Senate during the whole war. 
His house was burned by Sherman, his slaves freed, and he reduced to 
poverty. He is now President of the College at Columbia, S. C. He 
commanded the Harvard Washington Corps, of which Mr. Upham was 
the orderly sergeant. Upham was an excellent scholar, and univer- 
sally beloved by his classmates. 

I am very truly yours, 

JOSIAU QUINCT. 



12 

The second letter is from Ralph Waldo Emerson, under 
date Dec. 6, 1875 : — 

I send YOU such facts as T suddenly recall of my old classmate, whom 
I believe all his colloife frieiuls prized us I did. I was introduced to 
Charles Wentworth Upham at a little party of young people in Bos- 
ton, in 1817. As he never entered the Latin School, I was surprised 
to meet him a little while afterwards at Cambridge, at the examination 
for admission, when we entere<l College together. In Boston, he had 
been the guest of his relative, Mr. Phineas Upham, a well-known 
merchant, who, at his own charge, undertook to send him to the 
University. Upham distinguished himself as a good scholar from the 
start. Robert Woodward Barnwell, of South Carolina, early proved 
liimself our first scholar, Uj)hara the second; and they kept the same 
relative rank through the four years. The two became excellent 
friends from their first meeting; and I remember that, on leaving Col- 
lege, after taking their degrees, they travelled together for many 
weeks in the British Provinces ; and Barnwell thence went home to 
South Carolina, where he still lives, and has never revisited Massa- 
chusetts. Upham returned to Cambridge to study divinit)-. Long 
afterward, Ujiham and Barnwell met in Washington, when both were 
members of Congress, I believe, in the same year. Mr. Upham was 
always the chairman of our class committee, and always present at our 
annual meetings on Commencement Day, till we reached our fiftieth 
anniversary, when we voted to discontinue them. In College, his 
chum was Benjamin Tyler Reed, through all the four years. — a most 
happy arrangement for both ; for Reecl was the best-hearted man in 
College, never asfiired to scholarship, but was proud of his chum, and 
delighted in defending him from all interruptions, and their mutual 
regard lasted through the lives of both. 

Mr. Upham had a fine person, a rare social talent, and recommended 
himself by the facility of his conversation and his strong interest in 
personal history. His manners were frank and attractive, and his 
repertory of men and events large. The state of his health confined 
him in his later years to his home ; but his rare visits were very dear, 
I can well remember, to his early friends. 

With kind regards, 

R. W. Emkrson. 

Mr. Upham's mother died in her own home, in 1826 ; leav- 
ing, beside liim, three daughters, who all continued to reside 
in the Provinces. Two of them still survive: Mrs. Sophia 
Livingston "Winniett, widow of Alexander Wiiniiett, who was 
a son of the high sheriff of Annapolis, and a brother of Sir Wil- 
liam Winniett; and ]\Irs. Kathron Elizabeth Putnam Upham 
• Pagan, widow of Judge George Pagan, of New Brunswick. 
Another sister, now deceased, Frances Ciiandler Upliam, 
was the wife of the Honorable John Wesley Weldon, Judge 



13 

of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick, whose son, Charles 
W. Weldon, is a prominent lawyer at St. John. 

The most attractive course which the college at Cambridge 
offei'ed at that time, for young men zealous for Jiigh culture, 
true scholarship, and for effective work in elevating the 
community, Avas the study of theology with a view to an 
entrance upon the Clnistian ministry. During the period of 
Mr. Upham's pupilage, and for a few years before and after- 
wards, it may almost be said that zeal and ambition warmed 
in that direction to a passion. Running the eye over the 
college catalogue, it appears that the names of more than 
seventy of the young men who were contemporaries of Up- 
ham, in one or more years of his course, are printed in italics ; 
indicating that they Avere actually ordained as ministers, while 
many others pursued the preparatory studies without finally 
devoting themselves to the profession. It was in the main, 
and emphatically, in the interest of critical and exact scholar- 
ship engaged upon the Bible, upon theological works and 
subjects for the enlargement and liberalizing of the religious 
views of the immediate community, that this zeal was warmed 
and moved. It must be confessed that it was not one of those 
exciting periods associated Avith a pietistic fervor, nor one of 
those agitating periods incident to the surprises and sharp 
antagonisms of a reform. The admired and almost revered 
Buckminster, so young and so gifted, Avas the first of the 
graduates of Harvard at the opening of this century \(\ culti- 
vate»for himself, and to inspire an emulation in others, for pur- 
suing sacred learning AAith the help of the higher learning in 
the classics, and the critical apparatus for the more thorough 
study and more intelligent interpretation of the Scriptures. 
That accomplished and accurate Biblical scholar. Professor 
AndreAvs Norton, received the impulse in that direction from 
Buckminster, and communicated it to many others. The im- 
mediate community, at least, in Avhich the ncAV scholarship 
and form of thought and consequent belief found a grateful 
recognition and a fostering gympathy, Avas in a state to Avel- 
come and respond to the results, in the fresh influences brought 
to bear u])on them in multijjlied pamphlets and volumes, and 
from prominent pulpits. The old tone of reverence, tradi- 
tional habits and usages, and a faith as yet undiminished in 
the supreme authority of the Scriptures as the veliicle of a 
divinely revealed religion, Avere the basis of the training of 
the young ministers of that time. But the animating spirit 
of their study and thought Avas found in the genial couA'ic- 
tion, that the Scriptures, Avheu interpreted AAith all the best 



14 

helps of the lexicon and grammar, and with due regard to the 
time and circumstances of their authorship, yielded a system 
of truths and doctiines more large and free and generous, 
more ennohling, attractive, and favorable to ends of edifica- 
tion, than the traditional creed of New England. It was 
mider the prompting of tliis profound conviction that all of 
the young theological students at Cambridge, in those 3-ears, 
concentrated their studies and engaged their pens upon the 
authentication and exposition of portions of the contents of 
the Bible. The number of ess.ays and books of this character 
produced by them, containing more exact and amended trans- 
lations and comments lielping towards tlie elucidation and 
more rational reading of the Bible, was sufficient to give dis- 
tinction to a school, and to constitute a library. The style of 
ministration from the pulpit, which was the result of such 
training, was calm, sober, didactic, reverential, and as earnest 
in tone as was thought to consist with propriety and sincerity. 
Mr. Upham, with all the vigor and animation of his strong 
scholarly tastes, and with the enthusiasm of his kindled zeal, 
felt all the best influences of his time, ])lace, and surround- 
ings, and he generously responded to them. He made his 
full contribution to the class of writings just referred to. The 
period, the influences, and the circumstances of his entrance 
into the ministry, were of peculiar interest, offering especial 
excitements and opportunities. It was, among the laity as 
well a^ among theological students, a period of quickening 
and transition in religious inquiries and speculations, — of con- 
troversy, indeed, but of a style and range of controversy into 
"which entered some broader and more generous elements, 
making it something better than an embittered and profitless 
strife. Nor could his lot have been cast in a more congenial 
place for his life's work, with richer conditions for a happy 
home, pleasant surroundings, and strongly woven heart attach- 
ments, than in that which was appointed to him. As soon as 
he had completed his course of ])reparatory studies, and had 
made trial of his gifts as a candidate, he was invited to the 
associate pastorship of the First Church in Salem. There, on 
Dec. 8, 1824, he was ordained as the colleague of the Avidely 
known and eminent Dr. John Prince. This venerated and 
distinguished man, wlio would have been regarded as among 
the most honored of his time as a divine, had not his fame as 
a philosopher and a lover of pure science made him more gen- 
erally known, can be named as next to Fj-anklin in the list of 
our early lovers and servants of natural science. Only his 
rare modesty and utterly unselfish regards have left him com- 



15 

paratively forgotten by the present generation, as he himself 
failed to assert among his contemporaries any public recog- 
nition of his claims. His unpublished letters and papers, and 
his correspondence with men of science abroad, would even 
now furnish the evidence and illustrations of his right to a 
high place on the list of the most honored of practical phi- 
losophers. He cultivated many branches of experimental 
natural science. He made a signal improvement in the con- 
struction of the air-pump, — the instrument being still known 
as " the American air-pump," while its outline has been 
chosen to represent a constellation in the heavens. He made 
various improvements in philosophical instruments, the micro- 
scope, and the kaleidoscope, and a very ingenious stand for a 
telescope. Of the last he wrote, in a communication to the 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences : " I made the brass 
work myself, and finished it on my birthday, — eighty years 
old." 

Mr. Upham always regarded it as one of the richest privi- 
leges of his ministry that he was brought into such close and 
confidential relations with so wise and good a man, whom he 
tenderly loved and revered. Dr. Prince lived twelve years 
after Mr. Upham was ordained as his colleague ; and died in 
1836, at the age of eighty-five, and after a pastorate of nearly 
fifty-eight years. Mr. Upham made an affectionate com- 
memoration of him at his decease, and furnished a Memoir of 
him to the Collections of this Society, and also to the " Ameri- 
can Journal of Science and Arts." * 

Mr. Upham was married on March 29th, 1826, to Miss 
Ann Susan, daughter of the honored and learned Rev. Abiel 
Holmes, D.D., of Cambridge, to Avhom this Society is so 
largely indebted for valued services, and sister of our asso- 
ciate. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Salem, from this period 
on to the close of his life, continued to be the residence of 
Mr. Upham, even under a great variety of professional and offi- 
cial labors which called him awa}^ from it. The place — then 
a town, now a city — may well be described as the centre of 
his affections. Among all the honored and eminent citizens 
(and they have been very many) who have been born and have 
lived in it, there has not been one who was so thoroughly 
informed in its history, who had made a closer study of its 
interesting sites and localities, or who more fondly loved and 
more justly appreciated the memories and services of the men 



* Collections of Mass. Hist. Society, 3d Series, Vol. V. "American Journal 
of Science and Arts," Vol. XXXI. No. 2. 



16 

and women of fonner generations who were identified with it. 
He had a taste and genius for the lore and the investigations 
for which Salem offers such rich material. The simple truth, 
the uncolored facts of history, were good enough for him, in 
their burdens of romance, heroism, earnestness, and weight 
of importance. In his judgment, they did not need, and 
were none the more engaging or impressive when cunningly 
wrought in with the nightmare and distempered vapors of a 
morbid imagination. The place itself was to him invested 
with the lessons and the charms associated with the lives of 
seven generations of a peculiar class of men and women, who 
had subdued a wilderness, met all the rough and hazardous 
conditions of an exposed position, founded a State, secured 
through home discipline, school and church, all the safe- 
guards of law, virtue, and piety ; and then made it a centre 
for the world's commerce, and a nursery for producing sol- 
diers, patriots, divines, scholars, philosophers, merchant 
princes, jurists, and statesmen. 

So much, and even more, in the record of Mr. Upham's 
life must needs be said of the place where he lived more than 
half a century ; because by far the larger part of his laborious 
studies, as well as his professional services, whether in the 
pulpit, the schools, the city, the State and national govern- 
ments, had the most intimate connection with the history and 
the welfare of Salem. The meeting-house in which he first 
ministered, and which during his pastorate was replaced by 
another, occupied the same site on which had stood four pre- 
vious structures reared successively for the increasing flock 
of worshippers, beginning with the first exiled band. The 
discourses which he preached and published on the dedication 
of the new house, and on the close of the second centur}^ of 
the history of the church, show with what a fond and rever- 
ential appreciation he had studied the times and the gener- 
ations before him. It was with an intense delight that he 
shared in the gratification felt by many of his fellow-citizens, 
■when the veritable frame and rafters of the first place of wor- 
ship in Salem were a few years since discovered and identified 
in an obscure place to which they had been removed, and 
were set up again in exact renewal of form and materials. 
Beneath those rough-hewn oaken beams, cut when there was 
no saw-mill in the colony, with no ornament of carving, 
plaster, or paint, for beautifying the rude sanctuary, his pre- 
decessors, Roger Williams and Hugh Peters, had preached 
and prayed, and the honored Goveinor Wintln-op, on a visit 
to Salem, had exercised his gift of exhortation. The records 



17 

in which he entered the incidents of his ministry were in the 
series of those in which a remarkable succession of men, as 
pastors preceding liim, had made simihir entries. Besides 
the founder of a State and the famous Regicide, of historic 
names just mentioned, Higginson, Barnard, and Prince were, 
for their virtues, talents, and faithful service, of high renown 
and esteem. 

In the list of Mr. Upham's published writings, — not to 
mention those which he has left in manuscript, — it will be 
observed how largely the subjects of them are concerned Avith 
the annals of Salem and the biographies of those Avho lived in 
it. He could reproduce, in their order and situations, the old 
homesteads and bounds of farms of successive owners, and 
trace the steps by which the rocky headlands, with their 
borderings of forest, stream, and hill-tops, had been tamed 
into garden homes and scenes of busy tlirift. The extensive, 
Avorld-wide commercial enterprise of Salem in its most pros- 
perous daj'S, by its ship-owners and opulent merchants, put 
many of the citizens into correspondence with foreigners, gave 
them opportunities of travel, and brought to the town fresh 
supplies for valuable libraries and all the appliances of luxury. 
Tlie East India Marine Museum, with its rich and curious 
gatherings of wonders of all kinds from the other hemisphere, 
and from all islands and oceans, is a most significant illustra- 
tion of the wide rovings of those who presented their trophies 
to form this collection. To investigate, verify, and present 
in an instructive and attractive form, the local history and the 
personal characters and achievements of the town and its in- 
habitants, was for the remainder of Mr. Upham's life his most 
loved work. There is a remarkable exercise of discrimina- 
tion, of a sound judgment, and of a catholic spirit, in Mr. 
Upham's method and tone of writing about the original ex- 
iles in Salem and their immediate descendants. He had a 
rare skill in interpreting their characters by the circumstances 
which had formed them, by the times in which they lived, 
and the exigencies of their enterprise. What there was to be 
regretted or blamed in their rigid Avays and severe courses 
he fairly recognized ; but claimed for it palliation, and even 
respect, when truly dealt with. 

While he Avas eminently faithful, during the score of years 
through Avhich his professional relations extended, to all his 
duties in the pulpit and as a pastor, according to the exacting 
standard of the period, he Avas a most diligent student in his 
librar3^ The ministers of the old New England churches, till 
within a recent period, have generally been the best-educated 

3 



18 

and the Tbest-informed persons resident in the respective towns. 
With very riire exceptions, all the local and G^eneral histories 
of the original settlements, and the biographies of the men 
and women of distinction or great worth, have come from 
their pens. Salem, at one period, was more rich in its col- 
lections of books and means of culture than was Boston. Drs. 
Prince and Bentley put all their seafaring paris])ioners into 
service to bring them literary pabulum from all continents and 
islands. ]\Ir. Upham continued to pursue the line of pro- 
fessional studies on which he had entered at Cambridge, 
especiall}' in the department of Scriptural exegesis and inter- 
pretation. He published, in 1828, a small volume entitled. 
'' Letters on the Logos "; in which he aimed to show that the real 
significance of the term translated " the Word " in the open- 
ing of the Gospel of St. John, and in other ])laces in the New 
Testament, was not to be found, as some of his own school of 
theologians had maintained, in the Platonizing writings of 
the Alexandrians of a later period, but in the conceptions, 
the literature, and the forms of speech of the Jews in the 
time of the evangelist. In 1835, he published, as the fruit 
of much study and learning, an extended treatise as " A Dis- 
course on Prophecy as an Evidence of Chiistianity." The 
argument of this treatise does not rest so much on the fulfil- 
ment of specific predictions of local events, as on the provi- 
sions within the Jewish religion and system for expansion and 
extension. 

He was a very frequent contributor during his ministry, 
as through the remainder of his life, to various periodical 
works in literature, history, and theology ; and also to the 
newspapers, on matters of local or public interest. His dis- 
courses at the dedication of the new house of worship of the 
First Church, in 1826, reprinted the next year, and that on 
the " Principles of Congregationalism," on the completion of 
its second century, in 1829, engaged alike his spirit of thorough 
research and his love for the characters and services of his re- 
vered predecessors and their associates. In a postscript to 
the latter publication, he makes a study and estimate of the 
character of Hugh Peters. In the same year, he published a 
discourse, which he delivered on the Sunday after the decease 
of the Hon. Timothy Pickering, Avith a notice of his life. 
His Memoir of his colleague has been already referred to. 
Discourses preaclied by him before the Ancient and Honor- 
able Artillery Company in Boston, in 1832 ; on the Anniver- 
sary of the Association of the First Parish in Hingham, in 
1832 ; a sermon on " The Glory of God," and a " Discussion 



19 

of the Scripture Doctrine of Reo'eneration," — also appeared in 
print. His " Lectures on Witchcraft, comprising a History 
of the Delusion in Salem, in 1692," appeared in two editions 
in 1831 and 1832. Of the subsequent revision of his exami- 
nation of this melancholy theme, and of the remarkable work 
which he wrote and published near the close of his life, men- 
tion will be made in its place. In 1835, he wrote for Mr. 
Sparks's American Biography a " Life of Sir Henry Vane," 
once Governor of Massachusetts. The book is a charming 
production, alike for the diligent stud}' of which it is the 
fruit, and for the enthusiasm of fond appreciation of its sub- 
ject. The Massachusetts Board of Education authorized the 
republication of this Life in its school library. It was also so 
highly estimated in England as to lead to its being substan- 
tially reproduced in an English family cyclopedia, without a 
recognition of its real authorship, the name of an Englishman 
being substituted. Mr. Upham delivered the municipal ora- 
tion at Salem, on July 4, 1842, and the oration before the 
New England Pilgrim Society in New York, Dec. 22, 1846 ; 
both of which were published, the latter in two editions. He 
published brief biographies of Colonel Timothy Pickering, of 
Edward Everett, and of John Quincv Adams in the " Na- 
tional Portrait Galler3^" Vols. I. and IV., 1834 and 1839; an 
article on the British Navigation Act, in Hunt's " Merchants' 
Magazine," in 1841 ; a discourse on the National Fast on 
the death of President Harrison, in 1841 ; and an article on 
" The English Reformation," in the " Christian Examiner " 
for 1844. At the earnest solicitation of gentlemen acting in 
behalf of the Massachusetts Board of Education, he prepared 
a " Life of Washington " for school libraries. The plan and 
method of the work Avere to make Washington substantially 
his own biographer, in extracts from his own writings, in con- 
formity with an intimation by himself that his biogi-aphy 
might be so constructed. Of course, so far as this could be 
done, — as it could be only for some portions of liis life, — 
the work would have the prime value of an autobiography, 
as Mr. John Bigelow has recently so successfull}' dealt with 
the " Life of Dr. Franklin." But the publishers of the copy- 
righted edition of " The Writings of Washington, edited by 
Jared Sparks," from which work the materials would have 
been largely taken, obtained an injunction from the court 
against the issue of Mr. Upham's two volumes. These were 
accordingly suppressed, and, as Mr. Upham for a period of 
more than ten years fully believed, the suppression was effect- 
ual. He had seen the work which he had prepared only 



20 

fragmentarily in print, as the proof-sheets had been sent to 
him for revision. But in all probability the stereotype plates 
for it. piepared here, were snirei)tiiiously carried over to EijfT- 
land ; for the work, witiiont a sint;le alteration, omission, or 
addition, appeared in England, purportin;^ to have been 
])rinted in London, at the office of the " National Illustrated 
Library, 227 Strand, 1852," — two volumes duodecimo, pp. 
448, 423. It had a large circulation ; but the mystery of the 
transmission and of the agent in the matter was never cleared 
to the author. 

Mr. Upham greatly enjoyed his professional position and 
duties, cond)ined and varied as they were by a range of 
studies and of local and social relations which were heljjful 
to his special vocations. He formed the closest friendsliips 
with his fellow-citizens, and Avas fondly faithful to the claims 
on him as a pastor. But he was afflicted with a severe and 
obstinate bronchial affection, against which he long struggled, 
hoping that he might recover his power of public speaking. 
Being disappointed in his hopes, he resigned his office, Dec. 
8, 1844 ; thus conn)leting a ministry of a score of years. He 
then became an occupant, for the remainder of his life, of a 
pew in the church whose pulpit he Ijad served with eminent 
ability. It was not till after an interval of two or three years 
that he could venture again, with great caution, to use his 
voice in addressing any public meeting. But the tedium of 
partial invalidism was relieved by occupations and a diligent 
use of his books in his library. From Mai'ch, 1845, to March, 
1846, he was the editor of the " Christian Register," a weekl}^ 
paper published in Boston. Though this paper was estab- 
lished and supported in the interest of Unitarianism, a cui'sory 
view of the leading editorials from his pen, as well as of his 
general management of it, shows that his aim in conducting 
it was by no means limited by any sectarian views or objects. 
The respect entertained for him in Salem, and his own varied 
capacities for some forms of public service in behalf of the 
common interests of the community, enijaoed him ajrain in 
such service as soon as he had but partially recovered his 
vocal power. From August, 1851, to August, 1852, he was 
in the employ of the Board of Education in Massachusetts ; 
his duty being to visit the schools in the State, and to address 
the people in public assemblies in their behalf, in furtherance 
of the best interests of education. This he did in more than 
a hundred towns. Being elected Mayor of the city of Salem 
in 1852, he reorganized its police system ; introducing that 
which has ever since been in effective operation there. He 



21 

also secured from the Legislature the appropriations and pro- 
visions for the estahlishment of a State Normal School in that 
city, which continues to accomplish its hiiih purpose. 

Mr. Upliam represented Salem in the Massachusetts Legis- 
lature in the years 1849, 1859, and 1860. He was a member 
of the State Senate in 1850, 1857, and 1858 ; being in each of 
the last two 3'ears chosen the presiding officer, by a unanimous 
vote. He was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional 
Convention in 1853. In each and all of these places of in- 
fluence and trust, Mr. Upham was chiefly engaged in efforts 
to advance the interests of education in the district and high 
schools, and in the endowment of the colleges. He also ad- 
vised measures for the amendment and simplification of the 
terms of language in the statute law of the Commonwealth. 

His principal publications during this period were the fol- 
lowing : Speech in the Massachusetts House of Representa- 
tives on the Compromises of the Constitution, Avith the 
Ordinance of 1787, Feb. 20, 1849 ; Report of Committee on 
Reprinting the Tenth Report of the late Secretary of the 
Board of Education, 1849 ; Report of Committee of Edu- 
cation on the Custody and Preservation of Public Docu- 
ments, 1849 ; Report of Committee on the Reimbursement 
of the Secretary, Horace Mann, 1849 ; Report of Committee 
on the Age of Children to be admitted to the Common 
Schools, 1849; Essex County Whig Address, 1849; Re- 
port in the Massachusetts Senate of a Committee on the 
National Monument at Washington, 1850 ; Remarks in the 
Senate on the Plurality Bill, 1850 ; Report of Committee 
on Education on Aid to New Salem Academy, Senate, 1850 ; 
Eulogy of Zachary Taylor, delivered in Salem, July 18, 1850, 
at the request of the city authorities ; Report in the Senate 
of Committee on Education on the Visitation of Normal 
Schools, 1851 ; Address, as Mayor of Salem, on Organization 
of the City Government, 1852. 

The qualities and abilities which Mr. Upham had exhibited 
in his city magistracy, and in both branches of the State 
Legislature, naturally prompted a desire on the part of his 
fellow-citizens and neighbors to avail themselves of his ser- 
vices in the National Congress. He was chosen to represent 
the Sixth District of the State in the Thirt3^-third Congress of 
the United States, 1853-1855. His term was at an anxious 
and stormy interval in our public affairs, — perhaps, however, 
not peculiarly so, as our whole national development has re- 
peated such exciting periods with but rare intermissions. He 
had not been one of the original Abolition party, but was a 



22 

steadfast Whig, and both led and followed the main constitu- 
ency of that party in its transition into the Free Soil and 
Republican organizations. His first effort in Congress was in 
the interest of securing a permanent and dignified adminis- 
tration and form of higli service for the Smitlisonian Institu- 
tion, for the formation, security, and wise direction of which 
the nation is indebted chiefly to the persistent fidelity of John 
Quincy Adams. Mr. Ui)ham was chairman of a select com- 
mittee on the condition and management of the Institution, 
and to suggest tlio direction and improvement of its means of 
public utility. In his report he laid chief stress upon the 
feasibility and advantages of making it tlie basis of a national 
library, on a scale so extended, and with such selected ma- 
terials, as would make it worthy of a nation of foremost rank 
and growing to a nobler development, and adapted as a means 
for the diffusion through this nation of comprehensive knowl- 
edge as one of the conditions of its strength and glor}'. 

The special struggle in Congress during his term was that 
connected with the Kansas and Nebraska Bill. He made a 
vigorous speech on this exciting theme in the House of Rep- 
resentatives, on Ma}^ 10, 1854. He directed a portion of it 
in debate to a reply to a member from South Carolina, Avho 
had said that the only practicable or desirable way for bring- 
ing to an issue the question which was distracting the nation 
was an armed conflict. To this heated utterance Mr. Upham 
responded: ''The honorable member has intimated that per- 
haps it would be well to abandon the policy of compromises, 
and for the two great conflicting interests to meet face to 
face, and end the matter at once. I have suggested the rea- 
sons why, heretofore, I have contemplated such an issue with 
reluctance. But if the South say so, so let it be." The chal- 
lenge and its acceptance were sad forebodings of the issue. 
In the same speech Mr. Upliam predicted, as a sure conse- 
quence of abrogating the Missouri Compromise, the firm 
combination of the Free States in resistance to the further 
extension of Slavery, if not to its continued existence. 
" Heretofore," said he, " the South has profited by our divi- 
sions. Those divisions have arisen to a great degree from 'the 
restraining and embari-assing influence of a sense of obliga- 
tion, on our part, to adhere to the engagements and stand up 
to the bargains made by the fatliers, and renewed, as I have 
sliown, bv each succeeding generation. But let those en- 
gagements be violated, let those bargains be broken by the 
South, on the ground of unconstitutionality, or any other pre- 
tence, — from that hour the North becomes a unit and indi- 



23 

visible. From that liour ' Northern men with Southern 
principles ' will disappear from the scene, and the race of 
Dough Faces be extinct for ever." 

In another speech delivered in the House, Feb. 27, 1855, 
the topics discussed were " Mediation in the Eastern War," 
" The Institutions of Massachusetts," " The Ordinance of 
1787." In vindicating Massachusetts from some attacks 
Avhich had been made on her in debate, he said : — 

" On a map of the American Union, the State occupies scarcely a 
discernible space. In territory it is one of the smallest of our States. 
There are but three smaller, — Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode 
Island. But, sir, there are only three States that exceed it in free 
population, and but five that exceed it in their aggregate population, 
counting the whole number of slaves ; and each of these five States is 
from five to nine times as large, and incomparably more fertile. The 
soil of Mast<achusetts is hard and cold, and yields only to patient and 
incessant labor. Her surface is, for the most part, rough, barren, and 
sandy. Her only natural ex[)orts, and they have but recently been 
converted into sources of wealth, are granite from her hills and prom- 
ontories ; marble from the Berkshire mountains, rising before our 
eyes in polished forms of architectural beauty in the wings of this 
Capitol ; and the ice of her lakes, transported as a luxury to tropical 
regions all around the globe. But intelligent industry and agricul- 
tural science, taste, and enterprise are gradually spreading a garden 
over her surface. The traveller is amazed at the wealth, beauty, and 
animation of more than three hundred cities and towns included within 
her narrow boundaries. The stir of busy life pervades the scene like 
the sunshine ; Nature catches the spirit of happy industry, and the 
brooks that leap and sparkle down the hills and through the valleys, at 
every step turn the wheels of factories, around which thriving villages 
gather. Scarcely a spot so secluded as not to be adorned with church 
spires and vocal with the merry voices of children wending their way 
to district schools. I look upon Massachusetts, Mr. Chairman, as one 
of the most remarkable instances of social and political development 
exhibited in the whole range of history ; and, as such, well worthy of 
being held up to the contemplation of legislators and statesmen here 
and elsewhere." 

Mr. Upham afterwards wrote, in connection with this warm 
praise of Massachusetts, the following reflections : — 

" It is an interesting circumstance that a commission of a large num- 
ber of the ablest statists and men of science, appointed by the Emperor 
of France to make a thorough examination of the progress of the arts 
and sciences throughout the world, and taking its point of view at the 
date of the delivery of the speech just referred to, that is, the year 
1855, in a report made by its chairman. Baron Charles Dupin, gives 
to Massachusetts pre-eminence amongst all States and nations in the 



24 

height to which it has carried its achievements iu industry, arts, and 
the general advancement of society," 

On an incidental matter relatincf to his personal position as 
a son of a j)roscril)etl Loyalist, Mr. Upliam cjave an earnest 
expression of his feelings in the same speech ; exhiljiting a 
generous magnanimity, of which it would have been grateful 
if our country had offered more occasions for sincere utter- 
ance. He was to be succeeded in his place of representative 
by one who belonged to the " Know-Nothing " or Native 
American party, at the time when that organization was in 
notoriety. He, of course, l)elonged to the proscribed class. 
In the speech just quoted, lie makes the following reference 
to the accident of \\\)i foreign birth : — 

" Let not gentlemen say that it ill becomes me to stand np for 
Massachusetts, inasmuch as she has included me in a proscription that 
embraces several millions of our countrymen. No temporary phase of 
public sentiment; no popular excitement of the hour; no political 
prejudice, even if it express itself in a blow aimed at me personally. — 
can estrange my heart from the State where I have found a happy 
home during a life not now short, and in whose soil rest the asiies of 
my ancestors and of my children. I have ever found an enthusiastic 
satisfaction in illustrating her local annals. Her schools shed upon 
my grateful opening mind the lights of education, and my mature life 
has been devoted to her service to the extent of my ability. I have 
received at the hands of her people all the honors I ever dreamed of; 
and more, I most deeply feel, than I have deserved. The profoundest 
convictions of my soul require me to condemn, and, when the issue 
shall be distinctly made, in a proper spirit to resist, the policy that 
attempts to reduce one-sixth of her population to political subordination 
and inferiority. But no man has a claim to office ; and no one, with 
the spirit of a freeman, can complain of the results of elections, so far 
as they affect iiim individually. I do not complain. On the contrary, 
I feel particularly prompted to pay homage to Massachusetts at this 
time. It is more agreeable to my self-respect to vindicate her name 
now than it would have been when within the reach of her favors." 

The interest which Mr. Upham took in the subjects so 
warmly agitated when he was in Congress, and his mastery of 
the bearings and momentous character of the issues at stake, 
are shown in two articles which he contributed to the "North 
American Review," in October, 1854, on '' The Reciprocity 
Treaty," and in January, 1855, on " Kansas and Nebraska." 

In an address at the opening of the Republican Reading 
Room, in Salem, in A})ril, 1856, he made a very lucid and 
intelligent exposition of " The Present State of Parties." 
Sharing in the enthusiasm felt at the time for the prowess 



'lo 



and enterprise of Mr. Fremont, the so-called " Pathfinder," 
and belieWng that his iutrejjid and vigorous zeal as an ex- 
plorer was evidence of his capacity to serve his country in 
other departments requiring manliness and public spirit, he 
produced, in 1856. a substantial work of lively interest, en- 
titled the '' Life, Explorations, and Public Services of John 
Cliarles Fremont." 

Resuming his place in the ^lassachusetts Senate in 1857, 
we find in print, during his term of service, a " Speech on 
the Bill for the Extension of the Credit of the Eastern Rail- 
road Corporation," April 11, 1857, and " Speech on the 
Kansas Resolves," May 7, 1857. With that wonderful 
variety of oflfice-holding which resulted from the desire of 
those who loved and respected him to make sure of his ser- 
vices in one or another place of public ser%-ice. he is found 
again, as before mentioned, a. member of the Massachusetts 
House of Representatives in 1359 and 1860. And again he 
manifests his interest in what he regarded as a paramount 
concei'n of the State. In a report of the Committee on Edu- 
cation, March 29, he deals with the school district system ; 
and in another report of a joint standing committee, on the 
day following, he discusses the subject of academies endowed 
by the State. 

In his several terms of service, in both branches of the State 
Legislature, Mr. Upham retained that esteem and confidence 
of his constituents which had moved them to give him his 
oflBces ; and he secured the warm respect of his associates. 
As the presiding officer of the Senate, he was well informed 
as to the order of business and the rules of debate, dignified 
and urbane in his bearing and address, and considerate of all 
that concerned the rights, privileges, and high functions of 
that select legislative body. And. in alternating as a member 
of the Senate and the House of Representatives, he seemed 
to feel til at a place in either of them was one of equal honor 
and opportunity to do good service to the State. His chief 
efforts, as has been seen, were given to the interests of public 
education in the various grades of the schools ; in providing 
for them competent and accomplished teachers, improved 
books, methods, and apparatus, and in extending and strength- 
ening their influence to ends conformed to the noble aims of 
the founders of the State, with the help of all the increased 
prosperity and intelligence of the later generations. Being 
indebted for the first frugal earnings of his laborious life to a 
slender compensation for teaching country schools in Ins win- 
ter vacations at college, he loved to renew and strengthen his 

4 



26 

zeal in their behalf by some continuous relation to them 
through his whole career. His unstudied extemporaneous 
remarks when visiting tlie schools, as well as his carefully 
prepared addresses all over the State, gave evidence alike of 
his desire for, and of l)is rich abilities in, helping towards 
their elevation and improvement. 

As a speaker in tlie chair of the Senate, or on the floor of 
the House, though Mr. Ui)ham may not have exhibited tlie 
rarest gifts of oratorical grace or genius, he always held the 
attention and engaged the respect and full consideration of his 
colleagues. As a preacher for a score of years, he liad ac- 
quired no pulpit mannerisms, either of dulness or of heat 
and exaggeration in utterance. He had a finely toned voice, 
he used precision of method in his phin and arguments, and 
fortified the i)Osition Avhicli he assumed by a fulness of 
knowledge, a candor of spirit, and an intent to insure con- 
viction or persuasion by fair means for noble ends. In the 
frequent cases tluit liave occurred in this especially, as in tlie 
other New England States, of an exchange of the pulpit for 
the legislative hall, the exjieriment has not always proved a 
success in the speech or the inlluence of the men who have 
tiied it. But in ]\lr. Ujtliam's case there was never any pro- 
fessional incongruity or infelicity apparent in his exchange of 
positions. The main assurance and condition of his being 
listened to with confidence in either place were fully enjo3'ed 
by him in having secured the sincere respect and affectionate 
regard of all who knew him as a religious teacher or a legis- 
lator. Purit}^ of character, elevation of aim, high courtesy in 
intercourse, and a well-furnished, well-trained mind were his 
sufficient claims to consideration. 

Fifteen years of life remained to Mr. Upham after he re- 
tired from his last public service in the Legislature, in 1860. 
Though enough of vigor of mind and body still were left with 
him for valuable literary task work, and for pleasant, social 
intercourse, he began to feel the need of caution in maintain- 
ing all his energies. It was a point of duty with him to be 
regular and constant in his attendance in the lialls of the 
State House and in his work in the committee rooms. The 
exertion and exposure involved in a daily transit to and from 
the city had their effect upon him. He welcomed, therefore, 
the comparative retirement of his home. Gifts and legacies 
from warmly attached friends furnished him with ample 
means for his modest mode of life. His books, — those on 
his own shelves, the accumulations of his j'cars of study, and 
the gatherings from the distribution of public documents, and 



27 

the stores of various libraries within his reach, — yielded the 
materials for his enjoyment and solace, as well as for the 
severer search for truth. The apartment in which lie pur- 
sued his work had that comfortable home-like aspect and 
furnishing" which adapted it for its purposes. The simple, 
unadorned shelves were filled to the ceiling with their well- 
arranged and serviceable volumes. Spare spaces on the walls 
admitted tlie portraits of children and friends as visible helps 
for memorials of those who had gone from earth. The writer 
of these pages, in transient visits, was always impressed by 
the order and tidiness of that plain library, wholly free from 
the usual clutter and confusion of a scholar's work-room. 
The writing-table had no heap or maze of papers, only show- 
ing the book or sheet of immediate use. 

He prepared, among other manuscripts, for deliver}'^ before 
lyceums, a Life of Roger Williams, a Life of Hugh Peters, 
and a Life of Sir George Downing, — all three of those men 
of fame having personal associations with Salem. Anotlier 
of his lectures was upon History and Biograph3^ The Essex 
Institute, of wliich he was one of the founders, and in the 
management of whicli he was officially interested, was an 
object of his devoted love and labor. Its rich collections of 
books, pamphlets, manuscripts, portraits, and relics of the 
worthies of tlie generations of the olden time in Salem, and 
its valuable modern accretions, was a repository in the im- 
provement of which he enjoyed many hours almost daily. Its 
meetings owed much to him for their interest, while they im- 
parted to him through his associates high pleasure. His voice 
and pen were always devoted to fond tributes of such of those 
associates as preceded him in the way for all. The publica- 
tions of the Institute are enriched by many of his contributions. 

Mr. Upham was not so engrossed by these congenial occu- 
pations of the scholar as to intermit in any degree the friendly, 
social, and domestic intercourse incident to his former pro- 
fessional duties. On the contrary, he kept every link in the 
chain of affection, sympath}^ and neighborly relation, stroug 
and bright. Old friends and new ones found him at their 
doors and by their firesides, with his genial presence, kindly 
and judicious in speech and judgment, mature in Avisdom, 
with an overflow of knowledge and stores of personal experi- 
ence, a memory that never loosed its hold upon its vanished 
objects, and a radiant religious trust which heightened the 
sunlight of life. 

Mention has already been made of tlie publication by Mr. 
Upham of a series of " Lectures on Witchcraft," in a small 



28 

volume, of which two editions appeared in 1831 and 1832. 
There were very many reasons of a general and a special 
character why his interest should have heen intently centred 
njion this melancholy suhject. He was living, as a distin- 
guished rei)resentative citizen, in a town whose name and 
fame, though they might well have heen committed to quite 
other and worthier historic and contemporaneous grounds for 
a world-wide recognition, were unfortunately shadowed by 
one of those poi)ular misrepresentations, natural perha])s, but 
most unjust, which originate Avrongs that hardly admit of 
redress. " Salem Witchcraft," " The Witch-Town," are 
epithets and phrases as misleading as they are familiar. ]\Ir. 
Upham probably knew, before he became a resident of the 
town, not only that New England had no signal responsibility 
above Old England, and all other parts of Christendom at the 
time, in that stark delusion of " Witchcraft," but he may also 
have been aware that it was wholly from fortuitous circum- 
stances that the temporary frenzy, caused by the ontljreak of 
the delusion here, concentrated amon^ a few scattered j-eo- 
men's homes in a village within the territorial bounds of 
Salem. But the interest, alike of curiosity and of local pride, 
felt by him in a place which was to be his cherished home for 
more than half a century, would soon engage one of his in- 
quisitive mind and ardor in the investigation of historic truth 
in asking why and how it was that the old settlement, for a 
period the commercial emporium of New England, the birth- 
place and residence of so many eminent men, should be bur- 
dened with such reproach ? AVithin the circuit of his daily 
Malks were still standing dwellings Avhose innocent and be- 
loved inmates, after suffering all the indignities and wretched- 
ness of suspicion, accusation, and conviction of being in a 
dark com})lot with the Evil One, had been ruthlessly impris- 
oned, deprived of all human sympathy, executed on the gal- 
lows, and thrust for burial without religious rites into crevices 
of the rocks. The hill on which those executions took place, 
and where the remains of most of the victims were thus in- 
sulted, was near to Mr. Upham's residence, remaining then, 
as it does to-day, in its original state. His own church records 
contained grim entries of the ecclesiastical judgment following 
the sentences of the civil court against those victims. The 
lectures which Mr. Upham so early in his ministry prepared 
and published were highly appreciated by the public, and for 
more than thirty years after they were wholly out of print he 
was constantly and earnestly solicited to allow more editions 
of them. But he had become well satisfied that the treat- 



29 

ment which he had given in them of his soml^re theme was 
wholly inadequate. Very much of his leisure, when lie Avas 
free from public cares to give himself to literary and historical 
studies, was devoted, not merely to the investigation of the 
local details and incidents connected with the outburst of the 
frenzy in Salem, but to a most thorough and well-nigh ex- 
haustive examination of the subject of Witchcraft in the annals 
of the world. He collected all the sources of information 
within his reach for the study of the subject, — theologically, 
philosophically, and in its historical development, — as it had 
been treated by divines, pontiffs, monarchs, legislators, civil- 
ians, physicians, and jurists, and while it cast its sliadow at 
one time over all Christendom, had numbered its victims by- 
hundreds of thousands. The saddest incident in the tragic 
rehearsal was that the wisest and best men of their ages and 
countries, who might have been looked to as lights and guides 
for the bewildered people, had given their testimony to the 
reality and enormity of the crime of Witchcraft. 

Of course, Mr. Upham at once realized the mistake and 
injustice which had emphasized Salem for evil fame in respon- 
sibility for a prominent and almost exclusive agency in the 
tragic scenes of the year 1692. It was not because of any 
thing peculiar to that locality, as regarded its inhabitants or 
their opinions or experiences, that the frenzy of fanaticism 
and cruelty culminated there. In any town of either of the 
Colonies, the same instigating agencies at that time would 
have found the same material of credulity and delusion for 
exciting a local panic connected with a supposed onset of the 
Prince of Darkness. After Mr. Upham had thoroughly in- 
formed himself about his subject in its broadest relations, 
following it into all its dark and mysterious intricacies, he 
justly felt that it was in his power, and was consequently a 
matter of obligation to him, to Avrite upon it in a way to meet 
the highest demands of truth, — in fidelity to history and in 
the treatment of a profoundly serious theme in its psychologi- 
cal and religious relations. The result of his researclies and 
reflections appeared in a work in two substantial volumes, 
published in 1867, entitled " Salem Witchcraft ; with an 
Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinions on 
Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects." The author had in view 
two very distinct objects in the matter and method of this 
work. One was to deal with the subject of " Witchcraft " 
independently of any local relations or manifestations, as ex- 
pressing one of the beliefs or superstitions that for long ages 
had had a universal prevalence, recognized in all the ecclesi- 



30 

astical and judicial processes of a common Christendom, and 
as a matter of a continuous historical development in all social 
communities, with [)eriodical outl)ursts in various places. So 
far as tlie subject admitted of being treated by tlie help of 
the laws of cause and effect, he essayed wliat might serve as 
an explanation of the phenomena of Witchcraft. liis second 
object was, so far as full truth and rational argument founded 
on facts would allow, to relieve the town of Salem of the 
especial reproach visited upon it as having fortuitously been 
the locality on the American continent where a world-wide 
delusion found tem})orarily an occasion and materials for an 
outbreak. It was in the investigations incident to realizing 
this latter object that Mr. Upham wrought out a volume, 
which the writer ventures to pronounce unique in its charac- 
ter and method, of most engaging and curious interest in its 
contents, and as exliibiting a genius in a mode of research and 
of narrative whieli would impart to all local history a life- 
like realism for instructing and absoi'bing a reader. It is 
because the writer of this JNIemoir puts such an estimate upon 
Mr. Upham's " Account of Salem Village " that he has al- 
lowed himself so extended a reference to the matter of one 
of Mr. Upham's most laborious studies. He set himself to 
trace out, after tlie lapse of nearly two centuries, the materials, 
conditions, experiences, and social, domestic, and religious 
relations of the inhabitants of a rural hamlet on their widely 
scattered farms and in their rude dwellings, which admitted 
or aided in the generating of the primary elements for an 
outburst of the witchcraft mania. No village community on 
this continent, nor indeed on any other, has ever been the 
subject of such a keen and scrutinizing inquisition into the 
character, relations, and experiences of the people living in 
it while taming it from a dismal wilderness to civilization, as 
Mr. Upham concentrated upon Salem Village. A law of the 
General Court of ]\Iassachusetts, in 1G47, had ])rovided that 
all testimou}'- which was to be brought forward in judicial 
proceedings, — in all cases whatever, i^etty or serious, — should 
be written down or dictated by the witnesses, and produced 
to be read before the courts. P"'iles and masses of such papers 
have been preserved, relating to all the variances, disputes, 
embitterments, and controversies, the neighborly and domestic 
alienations and feuds, in our primitive communities, alike in 
civil and in religious matters. From the minute investigation 
of collections of such })apers concerning the people and the 
annals of Salem Village, Mr. Upham derived the materials 
for an almost marvellous reproduction of the very persons and 



31 

families living there in 1692. He had traced the stern and 
grim surroundings and experiences of the first wilderness 
settlers in forests, thickets, and swamps, as they built their 
rude homes, opened their rough highways, set their watch 
upon Indian prowlers, and concerned themselves with the 
securities of law and gospel. All the earthly conditions of 
their lot had an element of gloom ; and though their religion 
invigorated and nerved them, it threw around them other 
deep shadows. From the limitations of themes and helps to 
engage and expand the mind, from hard domestic struggles, 
from private grudges, from infelicities and misfortunes of 
personal experiences, from controversies and bickerings 
among neighbors, and from heart-burnings generated by 
religious teachers of ill-temper and weak judgment, were 
Avrought out the conditions and agencies for producing and 
heightening any strong excitement, the nature and direction 
of which might be decided by the merest accident. The 
period, too, was one of special causes for depression and dis- 
mal forebodings for the people of the whole Colony, whose 
charter-rights and securities had just been prostrated, and 
whose apprehensions harried them with dread of anarchy, 
even though they should save themselves from the woes of 
French and Indian warfare. 

How, in such a community of people, and under such con- 
ditions, a spark of mischief generated by the uncanny tricks 
of a group of children, and at once blown into a flame by the 
advice of minister, doctor, and magistrate, -^ who of course 
shared in a universal delusion, — blazed out into consequences 
grouped under the phrase " Salem Witchcraft," may be 
learned from Mr. Upham's volumes. The pages, though 
often so harrowing, have an absorbing spell, which even 
enthrals and fascinates. The author Avas aided by his two 
thoroughly competent and industrious sons in his documen- 
tary investigations, and in the preparation of maps, diagrams, 
and illustrations for securing the verisimilitude of his work, 
than which there is no more creditable or instructive contri- 
bution to our New England histor}^ 

The writer of these pages, soon after the publication of the 
volumes, enjoyed the high privilege of visiting and inspecting, 
under the guidance of Mr. Upham and his filial coadjutors, 
the scenes and dwellings identified with the tragic liistory. 
It was on a beautiful day in autumn, with tempered, bracing 
air, and a rich, mellow radiance of the atmosphere resting 
Avith a calm peace over the ancient homes and the reposing 
fields of those who had suffered fearful tribulations. One of 



32 

these dwellings, the so-called Townsend T'' hop House, was 
the home of that saintl}' woman, belovec revered for all 

domestic and Christian virtues, — Rebecci« Nourse, a con- 
spicuous and submissive victim of the delusion. In the ad- 
joining- field reposed her poor relics, rescued by loving hands 
from a rocky crevice on " Witeli-IIill." The house, built 
before there was a saw-mill in tlie Colony, showed its ancient 
beams, rafters, and planks, hewn out b}- axe and adze. Down 
the same old stone steps of the ancient cellar-way, and up 
under the forest-curved oaken timbers of the roof, the occu- 
pants were gathering in the two hundred and thirtieth suc- 
cessive harvest from the well-wrought acres of the farm. All 
the surroundings had their burdened memories ; not wholly 
painful, for the purchase-cost of human woe and endurance 
having been paid, light and truth and wisdom, with grateful 
appreciation and sympathy, kept the gain. The kindly and 
thoughtful mien of the historian who had so faithfully and 
skilfully opened the sad story was the reconciling medium 
between the past and the present. 

In an article which appeared in the " Xorth American Re- 
view," in April, 1869, Mr. llpham was sharply challenged 
and criticised for the alleged injustice of his severe treatment 
of the Rev. Cotton Mather for his agency in the Witchcraft 
delusion, as a ready, restless, and zealous abettor of the super- 
stitions from which it started, and of the distressing hori'ors 
in which it culminated. Mr. Upham replied to +his criticism, 
reinforcing all his original statements and arguments in an 
extended and elaborate communication which he made to the 
" New York Historical Magazine," edited by Henry B. Daw- 
son, September, 1869. Tiiis is not the place for examining the 
facts of the matter at issue. It is enough to say that Mr. Up- 
ham was too thorough in his researches, and too just and candid 
in his judgment, to misread, pervert, or color the materials 
for a judicial apprehension of the truth as concerning indi- 
viduals or events in history. And of Cotton Mather it is 
to be remembered that at the time when the fervors of his 
imagination and zeal wrought so heatedly he had not reached 
his thirtieth year of life. 

It was in the same year in which the volumes just referred 
to were published that Mr. Upham wrote and delivered his 
elaborate historical discourse at the re-dedication, — after re- 
construction, — of the place of "worship of the First Church 
in Salem, Dec. 8, 1867. On July 18 of the next year, 1868, 
he delivered before the Essex Institute a Memoir of his hon- 
ored and public-spirited friend, Francis Feabody, which was 



published. Mr.^TIpham took part in the course of lectures 
delivered before f, Lowell Institute in this cit}', in the years 
1868-69, by mem, rcrs of this Historical Society, on subjects 
relating to the early history of Massaciiusetts. His lecture, 
delivered Jan. 26, 1869, was on '' The Records of Massachu- 
setts under its First Charter." It has its place in the pub- 
lished volume. In the same year, on April 19, he read, at a 
meeting of the Essex Institute, a Memoir of his friend, Hon. 
Daniel P. King, Representative in Congress, which was pub- 
lished by the Institute Press. To the January number for 
1873 of the " Universalist Quarterly," he contributed an 
article on " The Rise of the Republic of the United States." 

During the first five j^ears of his ministry in Salem, Mr. 
Upham numbered among the most honored of the members 
of his society and church, and among the most revered of his 
friends, the Hon. Timothy Pickering. This distinguished 
patriot died in Salem, in 1829, in his eighty-fourth year. 
He had enjoyed a calm old age, largely occupied with his 
farm, after all the varied public services, military and civil, 
of his crowded life. Mr. Upham had found one of his best 
prized satisfactions in intimate confidential converse with this 
eminent man, who retained the principles and characteristics 
of his old Puritan lineage, with a trace of its ruggedness, 
rather softened than wholly put aside by the mixture of the 
rough and the gentle elements of his own experience. In 
close intercourse with him, Mr. Upham learned much, not to 
be found in books, of the events and the men, the secret 
agencies and the partially understood complications of our 
Revolutionary age. The colonel found in liis jDastor an in- 
quisitive and an attentive companion. Tiiey also discussed 
together the sanctions and doctrines of revelation, questions 
of Biblical interpretation, and matters of religious concern. 
On the death of Colonel Pickering, his father's chum in 
college, Mr. Upham, who had attended his last days by his 
bedside, paid him the cordial tribute of respect and love in 
the place where he had been a constant and devout wor- 
shipper. 

The colonel, who had been most systematic in his habits of 
keeping a journal, in preserving letters from, and copies of his 
own to, his correspondents, as well as the enormous files of 
documents relating to his official career and duties in so many 
public departments, left behind him a vast collection of 
papers, carefully an-anged and adapted for historical and 
biographical use. This valuable mass of manuscript is now 
committed to the Cabinet of our Historical Society. The last 

LofC. ^ 



34 

surviving son of Colonel Pickering, the late Octavins Picker- 
ing, had undertaken, after the death of his elder brother, the 
late Hon. John Pickering, — the foremost scholar of his time 
among us, — to continue the biography of their father, which 
the elder brother had barely begun to prei)are. Mr. Octavins 
Pickering had prepared and published a single volume of an 
intended series, in 1807. Just before his deatli, the next 
year, he had directed that the completion of the biography 
should be committed to ]\Ir. Upham. Though Mr. Upham 
had about that time felt the first symptoms of a local malady 
■which kept him much at home, impaired his bodily vigor, 
and fnially caused his death, and might therefore reasonably 
feel a misgiving whether he should live to complete the task, 
he accepted it Avith gratitude. After spending more than 
three years of labor over the colonel's manuscripts, and con- 
sulting other sources of illustrative information over a wide 
field, he had the satisfaction of giving to the press the matter 
of three additional volumes, wliich were published in 1873, 
thus securing, in continuation of the single volume already in 
print, an adequate " Life of Timothy Pickering.'' True, the 
biographer had before him a noble and an elevated subject, 
with a rich mine of the most authentic and helpful materials 
for dealing with it. He could honor and revere the man 
whose course through life he was to trace through adven- 
tures, perils, stormy civil and political conflicts, and all the 
harsh and irritating controversies and alienations involved in 
high official trusts. But the exercise of a sound and discrimi- 
nating judgment was also urgently requisite in the biographer. 
There were matters of delicacy, as regards persons and narra- 
tives, with M'hich he had to deal. His entire confidence in 
the purity of purpose and the thorough patriotism of Colonel 
Pickering enabled him to treat all the acts, incidents, and 
measures of his personal and official career which at different 
periods drew upon him censure, and even obloquy, not in the 
spirit of advocacy or championship, but in the candid spirit 
of a narrator and editor of authentic papers. For instance, 
it was a matter of current notoriety that Colonel Pickering 
had disparaged Washington. Such basis as the i-umor or 
allegation had in fact is put before the reader of the biog- 
raphy in a fiank and interesting way, and all that was of 
unkindly or unjust interpretation or inference connected with 
the matter is effectually disposed of. The incidental themes 
falling within the line of his nariative in tracing the ])rivate 
and i)ublic career of Colonel Pickering, and to the le- 
hearsal of which the biographer brings a vigorous aiul charm- 



35 

ing style, are such as the following : The treatment of the 
Tories in our Revolutionary struggle ; the business of Colonel 
Pickering as agent in the adjudication on prizes ; his intervals 
of occupation as a farmer ; his perilous and romantic ex- 
periences in the Valley of Wyoming, as a pioneer settler ; 
his advocacy in the adoption of the Constitution ; his admira- 
ble advice and course as a commissioner among the Indians ; 
his services as Postmaster-General ; his position and influence 
in the first formation of parties in the new Republic ; his 
services in the Cabinets of Washington and John Adams ; 
his agency in the establishment of the West Point Military 
Academy ; his correspondence, as Secretary of State, with 
foreign governments ; his rupture with John Adams ; his 
course as Senator and Representative in the National Con- 
gress ; his views of the policy involved in the second war 
with Great Britain ; and his interest in the promotion of 
agriculture in connection with the calm employment of his 
advanced years. Probably no more congenial work could 
have occupied the interval of retired leisure just preceding 
the disabling physical infirmities of the last three years of 
Mr. Upham's life, than that of re-reading the struggling and 
critical incidents attending the birth and earl}'^ pupilage of 
our nation as illustrated in the career of one of its ablest, 
most consjiicuous, and faithful patriots. 

Mr. Upham maintained through his whole mature life a 
diligent and extensive correspondence with private friends 
and with men in office. He was genial, heartj^ free, and 
confidential in his communications with those whom he 
esteemed and loved. He commented on the development of 
opinions and ideas, and he kept fully abreast of the most 
advanced thought, — at least in acquainting himself with it, 
— though by no means always with the result of accepting 
its theories or conclusions. Within the range and depart- 
ment of critical investigation and Biblical study which had 
so interested him in his original profession, the progress of 
speculation opened some bold questions which he was con- 
tented to leave where he found them. He had no weak 
timidity which would lead him to discourage or repress any 
natural restlessness as to the security of accepted foundations 
and sanctions of religious faith, or the confidence with which 
some avowed that they had discredited and repudiated these, 
having found better, or were Avaiting patiently for a substi- 
tute. He had so certified to himself and assimilated the 
essential verities for consecrating the responsibilities and 
duties of human life, for perfect reconciliation to the Divine 



36 

Avill, as it leads our way through mysteries and buffetings, 
and for a cahn reliance upon the lessons and hopes of Christ's 
gospel, that he " kept the faith." It was his reliance and 
solace when seclusion and pain, by day and l)y night, cast 
him upon his own resources of patience and trust. 

Among the friends and correspondents wilh wliom for long 
years Mr. Upham maintained the most hearty and confidential 
intercourse was Edward Everett, who turned to him freely 
for sympathy, advice, and sometimes for helpful guidance on 
exigencies in his brilliant career. This correspondence is 
preserved, and doubtless on the appearance of the much 
desired Biography of JMr. Everett will be found of interest. 

By a letter not received by Mr. U[)ham's family till after 
his decease, — indeed, it was not written till nearly a fortnight 
after that event had occurred, as it was dated June 27, 1875, 
— it ai)peared that he had been elected a Fellow of " the 
Royal Historical Society of London." 

Fifteen children were born to Mr. Uphara, only two of 
whom, William Phinehas and Oliver Wendell Holmes, sur- 
vive him ; the others, for the most part, dying in very early 
infancy. The names of family or friendly endearment given 
in baptism to these deceased children indicate the affection- 
ate puipose of the ])arents, as the following: Edward Chan- 
dler, John Ropes, Mary Wendell, Mary Wilder, Ann Holmes, 
George Murray, Stephen Higginson, and Francis Chandler, 
&c. Of the disappointments and griefs attendant upon the 
succession of such afflictions as darkened his household in 
these bereavements, the record kept in the hearts of those 
who bore them is sufficient. 

It was on June 15, 1875, — tw^o days preceding the general 
and enthusiastic Centennial Celebration in Boston and over 
a wide neighborhood, — that Mr. Upham's life came to a 
peaceful close. The event Avas duly recognized by the city 
authorities and among the friends of the departed, who had 
been so faithfully served in the varied career, and who so 
honored and respected the chaiacter of the divine, the states- 
man, the man of letters, and the citizen. 

His funeral took place from the First Church, on Friday, 
June 18, and was attended by a large company of his friends. 
The Rev. E. S. Atwood, minister of the South Church in 
Salem, offered prayer. The Rev. J. T. Hewes, Mr. Upham's 
successor in the First Church, read selections from Scripture, 
and an address was delivered by the writer of this Memoir. 
The address is here given. 



37 



ADDRESS. 

In the midst of all the excitements and observances of our 
local centennial celebration, we are drawn, by the call of a 
fond respect and a deep affection, to these funeral rites. The 
sanctuary I'epresenting- the first place for united worship of 
the earliest company of EuoMsh exiles to the Bay of Massa- 
chusetts has within its walls, for the last time, the form of 
him, who, in the line of its honored ministers, served for a 
score of years in its pulpit and at its altar. And when in- 
ability of voice and health compelled him then to chanoe the 
method of his public service, he found in faithful official trusts, 
municipal, state, and national, and in labors of eminent value 
with his pen, the tasks which occupied and improved his full 
round of years. 

There is no shock of contrast, no incongruous relation, but, 
rather, a strange fitness and harmon}-, between the national 
events which we have been commemorating and these more 
private obsequies. For the friend whose funeral rites are 
engaging us took his place in life, in profession, character, and 
forms of high service, — as scholar, divine, magistrate, states- 
man, historian, and biographer, — with the best and fore- 
most of those whose memories and achievements have been in 
our thoughts. So far as a single individual can, in himself, 
gather about him, personally, the same elements which give 
interest to a country, its history, its great events, its divines, 
scholars, merchants, and patriots, the tie of harmony is found 
here. Our honored and revered friend was even more a citi- 
zen of this country, because of the almost accidental fact that 
he Avas not born in it, but came after his boyhood in a bor- 
dering British Province, back to his paternal home, here to 
live and die. For more than one-half of the nation's century, 
his career, activity, associations, and employments have en- 
gaged him with the men and events which make up the 
nation's records. 

How completely did he identify the labors and the delights 
of his life with this grand old historic town of Salem ! 
Thoroughly versed in its history ; attached to all its inter- 
esting and instructive associations with the elder days ; skilled 
in tracing out its leading influence in the development of the 
infant colou}^, — as the home of many of its early governors, 
and of some of its ablest men and noblest Avomen, the centre 
once of a world-wide commerce through its merchant princes 



38 

and seamen, the nnrsery of eminent patriots, statesmen, and 
lawyers, — he fed his mind upon its records, and then he loved 
to rewrite them, accurately, vividly, and with lucid comments, 
that cliildren's children miq;ht know their fathers by tlieir toils 
and their virtues. Plow fitly, too, did he take his place in the 
line of succession with that series of remarkable men, who 
have been, for two and a half centuries, the pastors of the 
First Church of the Massachusetts Colony ! It seemed to me 
that, either in assuming their office, in accedinf^ to their duties 
and responsibilities, or in making a study, with such charm- 
ing rehearsals, of tlieir characters and services as developed 
by the spirit and exigencies of their respective times, he had 
assimilated to himself the strong points, the antagonisms, and 
the attractions of the Cliristian virtues, as exhibited in them. 
To those who know any thing to the purpose of knowledge 
about our local history, what themes of romantic and instruc- 
tive interest come up with the mention of the names of two 
of the earliest of those pastors, Roger Williams and Hugh 
Peters, and of the successive governors, Winthrop, Endi- 
cott, Sir Henr}' Vane, and Bradstreet. And then the two 
Higginsons, — father and son, — examples of the sweetest 
piety and of the most gracious virtues in their calling. And 
Barnard, too, in the crisis when patriotism required fidelity 
of spirit and the iniluence of a well-appreciated dignity and 
authority for the preaching and the prayers of anxious and 
troubled times. And then the calmly wise sage, Avith whom 
Mr. Upham began his ministry as a colleague, — one of the 
very first among us to carry his devout studies into the ways 
of God in the philosophy of nature, — the venerable Dr. John 
Prince. It was something to wait for in one's dying hour, 
something to look for in the unfoldings of the new life that 
leads up from mortality, to join in the fellowship of such who 
had gone before, to report to them the later harvestings from 
their own labors. 

Having devoted twenty 3'ears of the vigor and enthusiasm 
of his numhood to the Christian ministry, on the basis and 
with the conditions attached to it as he entered upon life, of 
couise the whole subsequent direction of his studies and in- 
terests was turned into a more or less professional channel. 
The ministry when he chose it, especially in the fellowship 
and community in which he was to exercise it, was then the 
most honored and envied of professions. Its expected service 
and work were of the highest order, requiring of all who 
would labor and be esteemed in it, sound scholarship, varied 
culture, graces of person, address, and character, and thorough 



39 

consistency of life. He met fully all those exactions. His 
needed task-work and routine of duty were congenial with 
his taste, and gratified liis pure ambition. In his own pul^jit 
and in those of his brethren, he was an instructive and im- 
pressive teacher, dispensing the fruits of matured study in 
didactic Christian lessons, toned with devout and reverent 
sanctions for faith and piety. He kept in regard the balanced 
and liarmonized claims of intelligent, speculative inquiry, and 
of the recognized limitations of the intellect Avhen dealing 
with things deep, augnst, and mysterious. His theological 
publications were maturely wrougiit from the best mines of 
learning then opened, and have still a substantial value. 

The traditionary standard of duty and privilege for the 
ministry, as he took his place in the ranks, allowed, and indeed 
required, that one who was able and earnest in that profes- 
sional work for the church should at his Avill or necessity 
transfer his service to what we call the State, — to civil re- 
sponsibilities of office in the magistracy, the convention, the 
assembly, the senate, or even the nation's forum. No man 
that fails in fidelity in any one form of high service is apt to 
be fit for much success in any other. But a good, strong, and 
earnest man, if impeded by infirmity in his first preferred vo- 
cation, may transfer all that trained and distinguished him 
there to other jnethods of truth and righteousness, and do a 
manifold Avork of usefulness. Massachusetts did not initiate 
its ministers for an inviolate isolation as priests. It is con- 
genital and inherent in the vitality and the traditionary pat- 
tern of this blessed old State, or Commonwealth, that those 
who are fitted to be its religious guides should, by force of 
the genius, talent, patience, and fidelity of that calling, be 
fitted also for secular counsel, for magistracy, for authority in 
educational interests, for patriotic influence, and for setting 
on record the liistories and biographies which rescue from the 
tooth of time the men and events whose survival and rehearsal 
make so much of the living impulse of our own right aims 
and deeds. So it has always been with us here ; and, when it 
is otherwise, our religious teachers will lose a large measure 
of their influence, and our noblest secular interests will de- 
generate into mere material and temporary objects. 

Having left his pulpit because he had lost his voice, Mr. 
Upham had still thirty years of life for congenial work, and all 
of it useful for others. With what varied and fruitful in- 
dustry, and to what permanent results, Mr. Upham wrought 
in all public affairs, and in choice labors of the pen, as over- 
seer of youi" schools,- as your chief magistrate, as .the State 



40 

Senator of your district, as your Representative in the National 
Congress, as editor, historian, and biographer, — this is not 
the place nor the time for the full rehearsal. He loved most 
historical studies, and in them his excellence Avas the greatest. 
For them he had the aptitudes alike the most essential and 
the most rare, — a habit of thoroughness in research and the 
authentication of facts ; impartiality of spirit ; the construc- 
tive power of imagination in re-creating, re-clothing, and 
identifying the past, and that calm, though kindled tone of 
narrative, with judicious comment and illustration, the fruit- 
age of years of wide reading and rigid mental discipline. 
His retrospective studies constructed the biographies of 
worthies who had lived in the vanished centuries. He gave 
the charm of a reverential, patriotic rehearsal, — illustrated 
by private and official virtue of the rugged fibre, — to the 
memorial of his father's classmate, in old age his own parish- 
ioner, Timothy Pickering ; and the tender tribute of his fond 
companionship, to such as the high-minded statesman. King, 
the ingenious and enterprising merchant, Peabody, and the 
venerated and honored judge. White. 

There is but one survivor now, and he in the retirement 
and repose of a most fruitful and honored life of like tenor 
with Mr. Upham's, — venerated and beloved in the scholar's 
home at Cambridge, — but one survivor of that group of 
kindred spirits in the profession of their youthful choice to 
which our friend belonged. — Sparks, Oilman, Everett, Pal- 
frey. He followed in the line of his early Scriptural studies 
the standard and the guides recognized wlien he began them. 
Through his life he found no better : a Bible authenticated 
with a divine warrant ; an Illumination helpful beyond rea- 
soning ; a sacred Teacher, sinless and loving, the only one on 
earth who, when he knelt in prayer, needed not to ask for- 
giveness of men or of God, the guide and saviour of our race ; 
lessons, which, when truly opened to the intelligence of men, 
and reverently obeyed, would supplement and extend all the 
revealings of nature about the mysteries of life and death. 
When criticism and si)eculation, doubting, affirming, and 
denying, led on with venturesome confidence beyond these 
bounds, he ceased to follow. It was as when a river pilot, 
used to navigate b}- guides and landmarks, trees, hills, and 
the smoke from the chimneys of human homes, finds himself 
on the open seas, with fog-banks and icebergs, without sound- 
ings or aspects, swept by currents, and having no port but 
foundering, the companion of the albatross and of homeless 
birds who can sleep on the billows. If it comes to that,. he 



41 

tliouglit, as others do, that instead of teaching others, a man's 
full and vexing task is to try to learn for himself. 

But in view of the last act and scene of Jife, as we gather 
about the remains of one whose earthly course is closed, it is 
not intellectual nor professional ability nor service that tones 
our feelings or our thoughts about the departed. It is the 
impress of character, the mien and spirit, the purpose and 
tenor, the impress and quality of the life, which, for long- 
years, in private and in public, at home and among associates 
and contemporaries, has been maturing the judgment, silent 
or spoken, concerning him, and lettering the memorial of him 
whether on the stone or on the heart. I can speak here, 
among his fellow-citizens, only as a friend, as a younger asso- 
ciate in professional relations with him, and as one who, by 
the interchange of letters and the reading of his charming 
Avorks, had ever}' way love and respect for him. Of late 
years, as I have spent the weeks of summer near by, it has 
been one of my richest resources of improvement and pleasure 
to visit him in his calm retirement, waiting for life's decline. 
The elaborate biography of Colonel Pickering, so rich in its 
presentment of a career of singular nobleness, and so instruc- 
tive in its delineation of the war epoch and the cradle days 
of our nation, was the work alike of the years of his failing- 
bodily strength, and the ripening of his mental and moral 
powers. And with what a serene spirit, with what a patient 
consciousness of its process, with what a trustful belief that 
while it was change it was not extinguishment of being, did 
he note the decay's of nature, and nestle in the solaces of his 
home. He sat surrounded by his loved books on their shelves, 
and knew that there was something as unexhausted and en- 
during in himself as in them. His pleasant retrospects trans- 
figured themselves into cheering prospects. 

And now, as for the last time, from this his pulpit, I look 
upon the contents of this casket, I see the refined beauty of 
his lineaments and features, as yet in their unwasted noble- 
ness of dignity. The forehead and brow still show the 
measure and compass of the mind once tenanting and serving 
it. The kindly greeting of his open eye, and the gentle sweet- 
ness of his voice, and the chastened moderation of his speech 
on themes of high import, — these are now to be memories 
with you and with me. 

The remains of the deceased were deposited in the Har- 
mony Grove Cemetery. 



42 

As this sheet is passing through the press, occasion is found 
to add to it the mention of an event which occurred after 
this Memoir had been put in type. Mrs. Ann Susan Upham, 
tlie widow of Charles Wentwortii Upham, after suffering from 
long protracted illness, died in Salem, on April 5, 1877, at 
the age of nearly seventy-three years. This excellent lady 
shared largely in the talents and brilliant powers of her fam- 
ily. A life-long friend of her own sex briefly expresses her 
appreciation of Mrs. Upham in these words, " She was of a 
truly feminine soul, a clear mind, a witty spirit." 

[An allusion to the decease of Mrs. Ann S. Upham by Rev. Fielder Israel, 
pastor of the First Church, Salem, at the conclusion of his sermon on Sunday 
morning, April 8, 1877. Mrs. Upham died on Thursday, April 5, 1877, aged 72 
years, 10 months, and 20 days.] 

A gifted woman, the wife of him who for many years served 
at these altar-places, -we laid away yesterday beneath the 
fresh spring grass and the first flowers, with the tenderest 
love, and in triumphant hope. 

She inherited genius, but harmonized all the faculties and 
functions of her nature with truth and beaut3% by education 
and culture, by the study of nature and of art, by the crea- 
tion and composition of poems for the home-circle full of 
cheerful wit and charming quaintness, embalming in the 
memories of her children the pleasant associations and 
scenes of domestic life and love. A woman of a deeply 
religious nature and life, rational, reverent, and devout ; 
sometimes distrustful of self, sometimes despondent, but with 
a cheerful, gladsome, genial faith in God and in hujnanity, 
fulfilling all the duties of daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, 
with obedience and care, with fidelity and the sweetest love, 
and who came at last, through a baptism of suffering, to feel 
that 

" More blessed His to give than to receive." * 
No more, — no mystic dojjma to believe. 
Only a thread in each day's life to weave ; 

Only a common duty, in such wise 
Transfigured by new light, that straight my eyes 
Saw how above all truth ti'ue loving lies; 

Saw that, forgetful of my own soul's need. 

Filling my life with gracious thougiit and deed, 

I might leave time — and God — to shape my creed. 

* These lines were quoted, as some of the expressions in them were almost 
tlic very language used by Mrs. Upiiam in the last interviews wiiicli her minister 
liail with her. 



43. 

My prayer was answered ; not as I had thought, 
I had not found the knowledge that I sought, 
To live without it was the lesson taught. 

The end of all my long and weary quest 

Is only failure ; yet a sense of rest, 

Of deep, unwonted quiet, fills my breast. 

And though some vexing doubts still hold their place. 

Yet is my ftiith no measure for His grace. 

Whose hand still holds me, though He hide His face. 

And day by day I think I read more plain 
This crowning truth, that, spite of sin and pain. 
No life that God has given is lived in vain ; 

But each poor, weak, and sin-polluted soul 
Shall struggle free at last, and reach its goal, 
A perfect part of God's great perfect whole. 

My heart believes, — yet still I long for light ; 

Surely the morning cometh after night. 

When Faith, the watcher, shall give place to sight. 

LUtelVs Living Age. 

And the morning did come to her, in its brightness and 
beauty, after the night ; her faith has given place to sight ; 
and lier hope now gains its full fruition, — rest and 
peace. 



















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